It is well known that in multilayer color photographic light-sensitive materials of the type that silver halide photographic light-sensitive emulsions contain color formers or couplers and development is accomplished using color developers such as para-phenylenediamine, oxidation products of color developing agents or oxidized color developing agents as formed during the process of development migrate into adjacent image-forming undesirable dyes, i.e., causing the so-called "color turbidity (color mixing)" phenomenon. It is also known that aerial oxidation of color developing agents, fogging of emulsions, and so forth, arising in the process of color development cause undesirable "color fog" phenomenon. The term "color stain" is used herein to include both "color turbidity" and "color fog".
In order to prevent the formation of color stain, use of hydroquinones has been proposed. Various types of hydroquinones have been disclosed, including mono-straight chain alkylhydroquinones as described in, for example, U.S. Patent 2,728,657 and Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 106329/72 (the term "OPI" as used herein means a "published unexamined Japanese patent application"), monobranched chain alkylhydroquinones as described in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,700,453, West German Patent Laid-Open No. 2,149,789, Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 156438/75 and 106329/74, di-straight chain alkylhydroquinones as described in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,728,657, 2,732,300, British Patent Nos. 752,146, 1,086,208, and Chemical Abstract, Vol. 58, 6367h, and di-branched chain alkylhydroquinones as described in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,700,453, 2,732,300, British Patent No. 1,086,208, the above-described Chemical Abstract, Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 156438/75, 21249/75, and 40818/81.
The use of alkylhydroquinones as antistain agents is described also in British Patent Nos. 558,258, 557,750 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 2,360,290), 557,802, 731,301 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 2,701,197), U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,336,327, 2,403,721, 3,528,333, West German Patent Laid-Open No. 2,505,016 (corresponding to Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 110337/75), and Japanese Patent Publication No. 40816/81.
It is known that even in color diffusion transfer photographic light-sensitive materials, the "color turbidity" phenomenon occurs as in the usual color photographic light-sensitive materials. To prevent the formation of "color turbidity", hydroquinones as described above are utilized. For example, Japanese Patent application (OPI) No. 21249/83 discloses hydroquinones for use as color turbidity inhibitors for diffusion transfer light-sensitive materials.
Sulfonamidophenols are known as color turbidity inhibitors for diffusion transfer light-sensitive materials, as described in Research Disclosure, 15162 (1973), page 83. Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 72158/80, and 24941/82 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,366,226).
In order to obtain high quality photographs, it has recently been strongly desired to develop novel color stain inhibitors which are capable of more efficiently preventing the formation of color stain without reducing photographic sensitivity, which can be added to light-sensitive materials with reduced layer thickness for the purpose of increasing sharpness, which are free from any variation in performance even after storage for long periods of time, and further which can contribute to an improvement in the light-fastness of dye images formed by color development.